


all the bones that i knew

by MapleMooseMuffin



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, I mean we all know what happened to Glenn right, M/M, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sylvain and Glenn were close, but like subtle, does that count as fluff, heavy mentions of Glenn (enough he's basically a third character here), i guess, moving forward, no beta we die like Glenn, or at least it's very very soft, recovering from grief, references to Miklan's treatment of Sylvain - specifically leaving him in a storm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28001670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleMooseMuffin/pseuds/MapleMooseMuffin
Summary: Sylvain and Felix return to the old vacation home they once shared with Glenn, Dimitri, and Ingrid. Memories lay waiting in the dust.“Remember these?”The shadows shift when Felix comes over, bringing the light with him. There are twelve little lines cut into the wood, starting at Sylvain’s knee and raising up to the middle of his ribs. Each is marked by an F.F. or a D.B.“I’m surprised the staff let us carve up the wall like that,” Felix says.“Well you and His Majesty were pretty good at the puppy eyes, you know.” Sylvain grins at Felix, then sees the softness at the edges of his eyes.Little, tender victories.Sylvain’s struck with inspiration. “When they get in we should settle this once and for all. Unless you’re still holding out for that last growth spurt.”“Don’t be stupid,” Felix says and moves on to the dining room. He doesn’t bother burying the fondness left in his voice even as he turns his back.Sylvain traces the most recent height measures on the wall one more time and smiles, even with the little ache in him that wishes Glenn could be here to cut the final lines.
Relationships: (also mentioned) - Relationship, (mentioned) - Relationship, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Glenn Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Glenn et al mentioned
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	all the bones that i knew

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, friends~ 
> 
> I started this piece for the [A Very Sylvix Holiday](https://twitter.com/sylvixchristmas) event, taking the prompt 'Fireplace', but it really evolved into something else. You could tack on 'childhood' and 'family/found family' here too. Or let it just breathe as its own thing.
> 
> I spend a lot of time thinking about what Sylvain and Glenn's relationship must have been like. I headcanon they were close. Glenn was probably a brother figure to Sylvain, too.
> 
> Alternate title: Can I Whisper it Back?  
> Both lines taken from Oh Wonder's song [Waste](https://youtu.be/Ar1grAdGkec). I've been listening to it on loop as I finish this.
> 
> Enjoy~

The Ethereal Moon dumps another three feet of snow over northern Faerghus in half as many weeks, just in time for Sylvain and Felix’s trek out to the edge of Itha Planes. Kicking through the narrow horse tracks left by couriers in the snow slows travel by at least three days, nearly doubling the trip. But somehow, even with the delay, Sylvain hits the crossroad leading south just as Felix does. Like they’d timed it; predetermined, destined.

Felix would leave him if he said it, but Sylvain can’t shake the notion anymore that something binds them beyond their own stubborn refusal to let the other die. Not since the end of the war found them standing back to back, panting and bleeding and breathing as one.

Felix dropped one hand from his sword hilt and reached for Sylvain’s. Found Sylvain’s palm already waiting.

Now they ride side by side. Felix lets Sylvain talk his ear off with inane gossip about the maids back home and the ongoings of the stables. Sylvain’s favorite mare and her stumbling foal, the dramatic feud between a pair of scullery maids fighting for the groom’s attention. Sylvain’s amusement in having seen the groom and a house butler sneaking off to their private quarters more than once.

After his stories, Felix asks of his reading, even though Felix hates retellings and prefers to read accounts firsthand. He doesn’t ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ in all the right places as Sylvain gives him the full synopsis of Dorothea’s latest opera draft – sent to Sylvain for ‘critique’ she claimed, even though it feels more like an excuse to brag on her part – but he does cycle through the full range of his ‘hmm’ and ‘hmphs’, and twice Sylvain spots the tiny lifted edge of a poorly suppressed Felix Smile.

The rest of the journey is like riding on air.

Early sunset is on the horizon when the little two-story cabin finally crawls into view. The pine forest spread out behind it casts long shadows over untouched snow. Icicles drip off the roof’s edge. And still, empty and cold as it is, it feels like home.

“Looks like we’re still first,” Sylvain notes. The snow is unbroken over the path to the old stable. Felix dismounts and cuts a fresh sweeping arch into the drift with the door.

“Ingrid said she’d be flying. She probably hasn’t left yet.”

“I still can’t believe she convinced His Majesty to ride pegasus.”

“Dimitri listens to his advisers.”

“More like Ingrid has us all whipped.”

Felix huffs, probably meaning something like _funny, but you deserve the smack upside the head she’ll give you for it_. Sylvain grins the way he always does when he’s getting himself into trouble and sets to work unbuckling straps and removing bits from the horses’ mouths.

The steps of the cabin porch creak and groan under their weight, but nothing shifts or threatens to give way. Felix tests the porch itself with a few solid stomps. Sylvain leans hard on the banisters. Quiet groans are all they get.

“Not bad, for ten years,” Sylvain says. Felix nods.

“Maybe the servants kept it up, after we stopped coming. This _is_ a royal estate.”

The Blaiddyd crest mounted over the front door isn’t polished, but it isn’t rusted over, either. The thick glass windows are frosted but not cracked. And the fodder in the stable was clean and fresh enough – not recently cut, but Sylvain checked three times for mold or anything else that might endanger their steeds. The worst he’d found was a single scrawny stable mouse sheltering from the cold.

“Well,” he straightens from the railing and crosses to the door. “Only one way to find out, right?”

Felix nods. Sylvain opens the door.

The first thing they notice is the thick cloud of dust that kicks up with the winter wind they let in. Sylvain coughs and throws up an arm to cover his mouth, while Felix tugs his fur lined hood around to shield himself. He shifts into a defensive sword stance and sweeps his eyes around the room. Not even on high alert, just taking in the scene, and still the battlefield is there in his muscle memory. Sylvain’s chest stirs with the strange gut deep sadness he’s only ever felt after the war.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in a few months,” he says to distract from the feeling.

Felix hums in agreement. His eyes move up the stairs to their immediate right – those lead to the bedrooms, three formal and one more for the servants. The five of them used to bicker over who slept where and who had to share. Who got the room with the blue curtains and the biggest bed. Felix would bawl when their retainers told him to share with Glenn instead of Prince Dimitri. And Sylvain always stepped in and convinced the adults to let the older boys share instead of putting up with Felix’s tantrum for the entire night.

He wonders if Felix is remembering that now. Or if he’s thinking about Ingrid, with perpetually messy braids and stocking feet, knocking on both doors until someone let her in, too scared and unused to sleeping alone. More often than not, Glenn would open the door and take her by the little hand, murmuring tender encouragements to make her feel brave as he walked her to the younger boys’ room.

Those quiet, early moments were the only glimpses Sylvain ever got of Glenn’s gentle side.

It’ll be strange, not sharing a room with him this time. Stranger to share it with his little brother instead. And Dimitri and Ingrid, sleeping alone in rooms they used to share. Maybe they’d all be better off piling into one room and dragging the other beds together. Like sleeping in the field on a summer march. Strange how that can now feel comforting, more familiar than his own childhood.

Then again, even as a child, this place was full of unfamiliar things for Sylvain. Happy children, independence and freedom, brothers who enjoyed each other’s company. An alien and magical world, nestled in the shadow of a snowy forest so different from the shadows of his manor.

There will be no retainers to supervise them this time. They’ll have to clean up the place themselves, find their own food and then prepare it, too.

Sylvain never thought he’d feel grateful for those wartime nights spent making camp. The Goddess works in mysterious ways.

“Let’s start with the fire,” Felix says. Sylvain blinks out of his memories and finds Felix has already moved on to the living room.

He crouches down to inspect the fireplace. Sylvain steps around the U of couches wrapped around the center of heat. For a long, quiet moment he just looks, touches, and remembers. The coat rack only Glenn was tall enough to reach the pegs on the first time they came. The bookcase in the corner Sylvain all but claimed for himself, and the cushioned window seat beside it. He laughs when he sees the old tea stain beside his favorite spot.

“We never got that out, huh?”

Felix lets out a grunt usually reserved for broken weapons. Sylvain turns back to him. He’s still crouched and scowling at the ashes in the fireplace.

“Something wrong?”

“There’s no wood.”

Sylvain looks to the side of the stone and mortar. Usually there were stacks of logs waiting for them when they arrived, already chopped and dried. He’d never stopped to wonder how it’d gotten there. Naïve.

“Guess we’ll have to chop some ourselves,” he says. But looking out the window, it’s already gotten dark, with barely a sliver of daylight left. From what little he can see, it’s started snowing again, too.

“I’ll find an axe,” Felix says. The madman. Sylvain laughs in equal parts exasperation and fondness.

Felix, adorably serious and ignorant to any kind of common sense that doesn’t revolve around a battle map, arches a judgmental brow. Like _Sylvain_ is the bizarre piece of their partnership.

Sylvain would like to think they share that blame, thank you very much. He reaches out and claps a hand on Felix’s shoulder when the young Lord Fraldarius makes for the dining room.

“We’re not going out in a _storm_ at _night_ , Felix. Let’s just find something to burn in here. The servant quarters probably has furniture we can spare.”

Felix gives him the usual side eye, but doesn’t shrug off the hand. Little tender victories. Sylvain’s gluttonous heart swallows them whole.

“Why not try the kitchen?”

Oh. Right. Shouldn’t jump to dismantling everything before you try the obvious solution.

“Fine. But if it’s empty I’m not letting you go chop down trees in the dark. We’ll have to find some other way to keep each other warm.”

Felix scoffs and does dislodge his hand then, making Sylvain laugh again.

“Don’t think you could stop me.”

“Then I’ll go with you, and when we both get hypothermia it’ll be on your conscience.”

“Don’t make me responsible for your idiocy.”

“So you admit it’s a dumb idea.”

Another scoff. Another laugh.

Felix lights a candelabra left resting on a side table beside the archway into the dining room. His shadow stretches long across the floor, lopsided from the thick furs neither of them have taken off. A different shadow catches Sylvain’s eye.

“Hey,” he murmurs. Felix looks over his shoulder. Then follows Sylvain’s gaze, turns to the arch. Frowns.

“What is it?”

Sylvain passes him and runs a hand over the hardwood. His thumb catches on a few notches made at hip level, little crooked initials carved over uneven lines.

“Remember these?”

The shadows shift when Felix comes over, bringing the light with him. There are twelve little lines cut into the wood, starting at Sylvain’s knee and raising up to the middle of his ribs. Each is marked by an F.F. or a D.B.

“I’m surprised the staff let us carve up the wall like that,” Felix says.

“Well you and His Majesty were pretty good at the puppy eyes, you know.” Sylvain grins at Felix, then sees the softness at the edges of his eyes.

Little, tender victories.

Sylvain’s struck with inspiration. “When they get in we should settle this once and for all. Unless you’re still holding out for that last growth spurt.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Felix says and moves on to the dining room. He doesn’t bother burying the fondness left in his voice even as he turns his back.

Sylvain traces the most recent height measures on the wall one more time and smiles, even with the little ache in him that wishes Glenn could be here to cut the final lines now that they’re grown.

The dining room is as dusty as the room before it, with longer shadows cast by all the legs of the tables and chairs. Metal glints along the wall leading to the kitchen, which is where Felix stands now, looking over the pair of weapon racks their retainers had to set up when half the kids kept bringing swords to the table.

Some of those play swords are still there, under the glinting metal of an all too familiar steel blade. The metal sword is what Felix reaches for now.

A hundred little, useless words of comfort swirl at the tip of Sylvain’s tongue. Sympathies and empathy, both worn out and unwelcome. Echoes of every meaningless pacifying sentiment offered up by people who didn’t understand, not really.

A hundred quips and jokes and snarky remarks linger in their shadows. Those are familiar, too, because the same reflex that sparks Sylvain’s routine smiles fills his mouth with empty charm and pretty lies. It wouldn’t help, but it might piss Felix off. Give him an excuse to pick a fight and work things out his own way.

Sylvain gives him the quiet instead.

The silence rings in his ears. His throat feels caked in dust when it isn’t thrumming with words and laughter. So he tries holding his breath. Takes the candelabra carefully offered to him and watches the slow, almost gentle brush of Felix’s fingers over the dull glint of the abandoned blade.

Against the wrappings of the hilt – strong leather dyed Fraldarius Blue – Felix’s knuckles are a stark white.

“Someone should sharpen this. It’s dull.”

Felix turns the blade once in hand. Then sets it back on the rack.

“Not surprising,” Sylvain mumbles. He passes back the candelabra when Felix reaches for it. “It’s been ten years since…”

_We were last here_ , he meant, but they both hear it for what it really is.

_It’s been ten years since Glenn died_.

One day Sylvain will find a way to divide up his life into something other than Before and After The Ground Dropped Out From Under Our Feet. One day the world will stop ending without warning.

Maybe tomorrow.

“We should look over these bows,” he says and nods to the second rack. This one is full of weapons for hunting, most of which he only used once or twice, though Felix ought to know his way around them. Even back then, Felix and Ingrid were fierce huntsmen.

“I bet between the four of us we could find ourselves a stag nice enough to make even His Majesty’s mouth water.”

“Then you better pull your weight,” Felix says. Sylvain nearly misses the sharp edge of his smile when he passes. It’s a little tight, but it’s there on its own. Not forced. Not faked.

“Felix, darling, when have I ever slowed you down?”

“It’d slow me down right now just to list them all.”

Felix moves on to the kitchen, leaving Sylvain half in darkness. Heartless man.

“Sheesh. Tell me what you really think, huh?” Sylvain whines, but he follows Felix’s light anyway.

“I just did. Here, I found wood.”

In the corner, past the big open brick space for cooking, sits a little pile of cut logs. It’s enough to get them through the night, at least.

Felix sets the candelabra down beside an abandoned cutting board, and something in the wood pile shimmers in the shifting light. Sylvain frowns and moves to inspect. The sheen of whatever it is fades when he steps between the woodpile and the fire, so he presses himself up as close as he can to the wall to stop casting a shadow.

“What are you doing?”

“Hang on.”

The shining thing is green, he thinks, with an edge of something else mixed in. Too hard to tell from this distance. Felix stands stiffly at the counter and watches Sylvain with all the interest one watches a strange beetle inching along the outside of their tent. Mildly disgruntled, maybe offended, but not enough to do anything about it yet. Sylvain kneels down beside the woodpile as best he can while still clinging to the wall, until he spots the source of the glimmer.

Caught between the middle logs is a little strip of fabric, silky and streaked with some kind of gilded thread. It’s a little frayed at the edge, but clearly hemmed, and familiar to Sylvain, though he can’t quite place it until his thumb runs over the ribbon’s edge.

“No way.” He can’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“This.” Sylvain tugs at the ribbon, but it’s firmly caught in the woodpile. If he looks closely he can almost make out a couple strands of long blonde hair.

Felix crouches down beside him and reaches out to inspect the ribbon himself. After a moment he shifts his frown back to Sylvain.

“What about it?”

Sylvain drops to sit more comfortably on the floor. The cold of the kitchen stone seeps through his britches immediately and makes him wince even as he grins.

“Do you remember the one time our retainers let you guys ‘help’ chop wood in the yard?”

“Not well. If I recall, we just carried wood in from the yard after it was already chopped.”

“Glenn and I did the chopping.”

“You stood by and handed him logs.”

“We traded!”

Felix makes a doubtful sound. Sylvain decides to ignore it.

“ _Anyway_ , what _I_ remember is Ingrid tottering under twice as many logs as you, because His Majesty was carrying that many and she wanted to prove she was strong enough to become a knight.”

“Ridiculous,” Felix scoffs. He strokes his thumb over the ribbon again. “At the age of ten, Dimitri could heft a javelin farther than my _father_. None of us could have matched him.”

“She tried, though. And she wouldn’t let anyone help her, either. Me and Glenn had to tuck our axes under her pile where she couldn’t see just to help her make it into the kitchen.”

“She really has always been that stubborn, hasn’t she?”

Felix smiles that little soft thing that melts Sylvain’s heart every time he sees it. In the low light his lashes look so long, his sharp face somehow rounded at the cutting edges. Beautiful, handsome. So close and touchable, and somehow the closest Sylvain has ever come to holy.

The Ethereal Moon drifts into frame in the window above the washbasin. High up above, the Blue Sea Star has already gone. And still Sylvain finds divinity.

“Some things never change, Felix.”

A long strand of inky hair slips free when Felix looks up at him. Raises one hand to tuck it back behind his ear. Carries that hand forward, settles it against Sylvain’s knee.

His eyes are honey whiskey, swirled in a glass with the flicker of the candlelight. The air is still, sound muffled by dust and falling snow just beyond the back door. Felix doesn’t say it. And still, Sylvain hears him.

Some part of the world stops spinning, if only for a minute. The subtlest freefall. Sylvain feels it in the way his insides spin. In the dizziness of untempered emotion surging. The smallest seed of chaos planted in his chest.

Felix holds his little smile, softens his whiskey eyes. Is lethal in all things.

Sylvain’s always had a thing about death.

He closes his hand over Felix’s when he feels like he can breathe again. Squeezes just to remind himself how. Felix lets him. Then the world starts spinning again, and Sylvain lets Felix slip his hand out of his lap to tug at the logs they’d been searching for.

Sylvain is slower to rise. Felix starts pulling out logs, one by one, steadily filling his arms until there’s no room for him to carry the candelabra. No doubt he plans on trekking back through the cabin in the dark. The thought is finally enough to pull Sylvain onto his feet, and he takes up the forgone light in the other’s stead.

Still he hesitates beside the log pile.

“You know what?”

Felix grunts, less asking and more acknowledging that Sylvain will answer either way.

“I’m gonna give this back to Ingrid.”

Felix shifts the logs in his arms as he turns back to give Sylvain a skeptical look.

“An old hair ribbon?”

Sylvain sets the candelabra back and takes up logs until he can tug the tattered silk ribbon free.

“Yeah. It’s hers. She’ll get a kick out of it.”

“I doubt she’d even recognize it,” Felix grumbles. He waits in the doorway for Sylvain, only stepping through when they’re both ready.

“She will. It’ll make her smile.”

There’s a loose floorboard in the dining room that creaks when they step on it. Glenn’s sword glints in the candlelight for just a heartbeat. A little echo of something lost. Sylvain turns his back on it.

He stops Felix in the archway to the living room by knocking their shoulders together.

“What?”

“Hang on a sec.”

“What are you doing?”

Sylvain turns and sets down his pile of logs by the wall. He comes back up with the knife normally tucked into his boot.

“Lean up against the wall.”

“No, Sylvain.” Ah, there’s that flat, tired tone, the begrudging eyes. Sylvain grins in the face of Felix’s low simmering annoyance and insists with a flick of his blade.

“C’mon, real quick.”

“I have more important things to do than have you carve my height into the wall. Or are they immune to frostbite up in Gautier?”

“You know that’s not true.”

_A mountainside. A winter storm. Miklan’s back fading in the blizzard. Glenn and Rodrigue, hours later, and a blanket sent on by a frantic little boy who knew his best friend was in danger._

“Then let me light the fire, you oaf.”

Felix moves to push past him, but Sylvain steps in the way again and again, until the younger huffs and shoots him a glare as sharp as any sword ever worn on his belt.

“Move before I make you.”

“You won’t.” He will, and Sylvain knows it. “Is it really such a big deal to you?”

“Is it to _you_?” Felix shoots back.

Sylvain shrugs and rolls his neck. Trails his gaze over the ceiling. “I just figured, this whole place is stuck in the past. We need something to bring it up ten years. Root it in the here and now.”

A tattered ribbon woven between his fingers. Glenn’s sword sleeping on the rack. Untouched books and a tea-stained window seat. Twelve faded lines.

Felix moves wordlessly. Straightens his spine and presses it against the edge of the arch.

“Hurry it up then,” he says. The shy dart of his eyes away from Sylvain’s reads like gratitude. Strange when Sylvain meant to be selfish.

The wood is softer than he expects it to be when he presses the tip of his blade in. All it takes is a flick of the wrist. Easier than cutting skin.

It should be, he supposes.

“There. Now when His Majesty gets in we can finish the job.”

“Initial it, then,” Felix says, brusque, and steps away to start the fire. He takes Sylvain’s wood pile, too.

The fireplace offers more light than their little half gone candles. Sylvain sets the candelabra back down where they found it and lingers there on the edge of the room. Taking it in as if for the first time, in a literal new light. The couches cast long, dancing shadows, and so does Felix while he warms his hands over the flames. The wind of the rising storm outside makes the walls creak now and then. For a moment, it’s easy to pretend; the sound is of more people, children playing upstairs. The shadows flickering movement of someone come to take a turn with the heat. Waiting just outside of their peripherals, quiet but there.

Sylvain wraps Ingrid’s old hair ribbon tight around his palm like the wrapping around Glenn’s sword hilt, and makes a promise. To protect them. To keep them safe. To make sure they’ll all be here in another ten years, happy and basking in the warmth of Felix’s fire. Putting another notch in the wall.

Felix steps to the side of the flame, so that the light washes over Sylvain.

“Get over here before you freeze.”

Sylvain laughs.

“I’ve got a better idea.”

Felix waits for him by the hearth. Watches Sylvain walk through the shadows to the cupboard under the stairs, where a folded pile of old furs wait.

“Sit with me,” Sylvain says. He offers Felix his favorite – a fox fur he’d helped tan himself. Felix takes it and another thicker fur Sylvain barely remembers. Wraps them both around himself. Then holds out a hand, drawing Sylvain in.

They sink together to the floor by the flames. Wrapped up together. Safe and secure. The shadows around them are cast by still furniture. When the house creaks, it’s just the wind.

Felix curls closer, lifts his chin. Settles a hand on Sylvain’s cheek and pulls him in for a long, quiet kiss.

His other hand finds the ribbon wrapped round Sylvain’s palm. Ghosting fingers trace over the oath. Like he sees it for what it is.

Like he’s promising too.

That’s always how it’s been, isn’t it? Sylvain swears himself to serve, and Felix… Felix has never let him go alone.

“Some things never change,” Sylvain sighs out a laugh.

An old house, a tea-stained window seat. The sword, the notches, the ribbon.

Sylvain. Self-sacrificing and serving.

Felix. Steadfast and undeniable.

Felix. Kissing him in the pool of light from the fireplace. Soft and pliant in all the ways Sylvain thought he’d buried alongside Glenn.

Ten years of a hollow heart and an empty winter home.

“Some do,” Felix says. Quiet, but so clear.

They sit there in front of the flames. The first bit of warmth this place has seen in so long. The brightest fire of the decade.

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/maplmoosemuffin)
> 
> Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate <3


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